Officials are selected by the league they work for. Amateur hockey leagues use guidelines established by national organizing bodies as a basis for choosing their officiating staffs.

In North America, the national organizing bodies Hockey Canada and USA Hockey approve officials according to their experience level as well as their ability to pass rules knowledge and skating ability tests.

Hockey Canada has officiating levels I through VI. Since men's ice hockey is a full contact sport, body checks are allowed so injuries are a common occurrence.

Protective equipment is mandatory and is enforced in all competitive situations. This includes a helmet cage worn if certain age or clear plastic visor can be worn , shoulder pads, elbow pads, mouth guard, protective gloves, heavily padded shorts also known as hockey pants or a girdle, athletic cup also known as a jock, for males; and jill, for females , shin pads, skates, and optionally a neck protector.

Goaltenders use different equipment. Goaltenders wear specialized goalie skates these skates are built more for movement side to side rather than forwards and backwards , a jock or jill, large leg pads there are size restrictions in certain leagues , blocking glove, catching glove, a chest protector, a goalie mask, and a large jersey.

Goaltenders' equipment has continually become larger and larger, leading to fewer goals in each game and many official rule changes. Hockey skates are optimized for physical acceleration, speed and manoeuvrability.

This includes rapid starts, stops, turns, and changes in skating direction. In addition, they must be rigid and tough to protect the skater's feet from contact with other skaters, sticks, pucks, the boards, and the ice itself.

Rigidity also improves the overall manoeuvrability of the skate. Hockey players usually adjust these parameters based on their skill level, position, and body type.

The hockey stick consists of a long, relatively wide, and slightly curved flat blade, attached to a shaft. The curve itself has a big impact on its performance.

A deep curve allows for lifting the puck easier while a shallow curve allows for easier backhand shots. The flex of the stick also impacts the performance.

Typically, a less flexible stick is meant for a stronger player since the player is looking for the right balanced flex that allows the stick to flex easily while still having a strong "whip-back" which sends the puck flying at high speeds.

It is quite distinct from sticks in other sports games and most suited to hitting and controlling the flat puck. Its unique shape contributed to the early development of the game.

Ice hockey is a full contact sport and carries a high risk of injury. Skate blades, hockey sticks, shoulders, hips, and hockey pucks all contribute.

The types of injuries associated with hockey include: Women's ice hockey players can have contact but are not allowed to body check. Compared to athletes who play other sports, ice hockey players are at higher risk of overuse injuries and injuries caused by early sports specialization by teenagers.

According to the Hughston Health Alert, "Lacerations to the head, scalp, and face are the most frequent types of injury [in hockey].

Most of these injuries are caused by player contact, falls and contact with a puck, high stick and occasionally, a skate blade.

Due to the danger of delivering a check from behind, many leagues, including the NHL have made this a major and game misconduct penalty called "boarding".

Another type of check that accounts for many of the player-to-player contact concussions is a check to the head resulting in a misconduct penalty called "head contact".

A check to the head can be defined as delivering a hit while the receiving player's head is down and their waist is bent and the aggressor is targeting the opponent player's head.

The most dangerous result of a head injury in hockey can be classified as a concussion. Most concussions occur during player-to-player contact rather than when a player is checked into the boards.

Concussions that players suffer may go unreported because there is no obvious physical signs if a player is not knocked unconscious.

This can prove to be dangerous if a player decides to return to play without receiving proper medical attention. Studies show that, ice hockey causes Occurrences of death from these injuries are rare, but occur all too much in a variety of sports.

An important defensive tactic is checking—attempting to take the puck from an opponent or to remove the opponent from play.

Stick checking , sweep checking , and poke checking are legal uses of the stick to obtain possession of the puck. The neutral zone trap is designed to isolate the puck carrier in the neutral zone preventing him from entering the offensive zone.

Body checking is using one's shoulder or hip to strike an opponent who has the puck or who is the last to have touched it the last person to have touched the puck is still legally "in possession" of it, although a penalty is generally called if he is checked more than two seconds after his last touch.

Often the term checking is used to refer to body checking, with its true definition generally only propagated among fans of the game. Offensive tactics include improving a team's position on the ice by advancing the puck out of one's zone towards the opponent's zone, progressively by gaining lines, first your own blue line, then the red line and finally the opponent's blue line.

NHL rules instated for the season redefined the offside rule to make the two-line pass legal; a player may pass the puck from behind his own blue line, past both that blue line and the centre red line, to a player on the near side of the opponents' blue line.

Offensive tactics are designed ultimately to score a goal by taking a shot. When a player purposely directs the puck towards the opponent's goal, he or she is said to "shoot" the puck.

A deflection is a shot that redirects a shot or a pass towards the goal from another player, by allowing the puck to strike the stick and carom towards the goal.

A one-timer is a shot struck directly off a pass, without receiving the pass and shooting in two separate actions. Headmanning the puck , also known as breaking out , is the tactic of rapidly passing to the player farthest down the ice.

Loafing , also known as cherry-picking , is when a player, usually a forward, skates behind an attacking team, instead of playing defence, in an attempt to create an easy scoring chance.

A team that is losing by one or two goals in the last few minutes of play will often elect to pull the goalie ; that is, remove the goaltender and replace him or her with an extra attacker on the ice in the hope of gaining enough advantage to score a goal.

However, it is an act of desperation, as it sometimes leads to the opposing team extending their lead by scoring a goal in the empty net.

One of the most important strategies for a team is their forecheck. Forechecking is the act of attacking the opposition in their defensive zone.

Forechecking is an important part of the dump and chase strategy i. Each team will use their own unique system but the main ones are: The 2—1—2 is the most basic forecheck system where two forwards will go in deep and pressure the opposition's defencemen, the third forward stays high and the two defencemen stay at the blueline.

The 1—2—2 is a bit more conservative system where one forward pressures the puck carrier and the other two forwards cover the oppositions' wingers, with the two defencemen staying at the blueline.

The 1—4 is the most defensive forecheck system, referred to as the neutral zone trap, where one forward will apply pressure to the puck carrier around the oppositions' blueline and the other 4 players stand basically in a line by their blueline in hopes the opposition will skate into one of them.

Another strategy is the left wing lock , which has two forwards pressure the puck and the left wing and the two defencemen stay at the blueline.

There are many other little tactics used in the game of hockey. Cycling moves the puck along the boards in the offensive zone to create a scoring chance by making defenders tired or moving them out of position.

Pinching is when a defenceman pressures the opposition's winger in the offensive zone when they are breaking out, attempting to stop their attack and keep the puck in the offensive zone.

A saucer pass is a pass used when an opposition's stick or body is in the passing lane. It is the act of raising the puck over the obstruction and having it land on a teammate's stick.

A deke , short for "decoy," is a feint with the body or stick to fool a defender or the goalie. Many modern players, such as Pavel Datsyuk , Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane , have picked up the skill of "dangling," which is fancier deking and requires more stick handling skills.

Although fighting is officially prohibited in the rules, it is not an uncommon occurrence at the professional level, and its prevalence has been both a target of criticism and a considerable draw for the sport.

At the professional level in North America fights are unofficially condoned. Enforcers and other players fight to demoralize the opposing players while exciting their own, as well as settling personal scores.

A fight will also break out if one of the team's skilled players gets hit hard or someone gets hit by what the team perceives as a dirty hit.

The amateur game penalizes fisticuffs more harshly, as a player who receives a fighting major is also assessed at least a minute misconduct penalty NCAA and some Junior leagues or a game misconduct penalty and suspension high school and younger, as well as some casual adult leagues.

Ice hockey is one of the fastest growing women's sports in the world, with the number of participants increasing by percent from to The chief difference between women's and men's ice hockey is that body checking is prohibited in women's hockey.

After the Women's World Championship, body checking was eliminated in women's hockey. In current IIHF women's competition, body checking is either a minor or major penalty , decided at the referee's discretion.

In Canada, to some extent ringette has served as the female counterpart to ice hockey, in the sense that traditionally, boys have played hockey while girls have played ringette.

Women are known to have played the game in the 19th century. Several games were recorded in the s in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The women of Lord Stanley's family were known to participate in the game of ice hockey on the outdoor ice rink at Rideau Hall , the residence of Canada's Governor-General.

The game developed at first without an organizing body. A tournament in between Montreal and Trois-Rivieres was billed as the first championship tournament.

Several tournaments, such as at the Banff Winter Carnival, were held in the early 20th century and numerous women's teams such as the Seattle Vamps and Vancouver Amazons existed.

Starting in the s, the game spread to universities. Today, the sport is played from youth through adult leagues, and in the universities of North America and internationally.

There are two major women's hockey leagues, the National Women's Hockey League with teams in the Northeastern United States which is a professional league and the Canadian Women's Hockey League with teams in Canada and the United States, which is semi-professional and is developing toward becoming a fully professional league.

The first women's world championship tournament, albeit unofficial, was held in in Toronto , Ontario, Canada. Women's ice hockey was added as a medal sport at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

The United States won the gold, Canada won the silver and Finland won the bronze medal. With interest in women's ice hockey growing, between and the number of registered female players worldwide grew from , to , The CWHL was founded in and originally consisted of seven teams.

As of , there are six teams, although the teams themselves have changed. The league consists of five teams, though it had four teams for the league's first three seasons.

The NHL is by far the best attended and most popular ice hockey league in the world. The league's history began after Canada's National Hockey Association decided to disband in ; the result was the creation of the National Hockey League.

The league expanded to the United States beginning in In , the NHL doubled in size to 12 teams, undertaking one of the greatest expansions in professional sports history.

A few years later, in , a new 12 team league, the World Hockey Association WHA was formed and due to its ensuing rivalry with the NHL, it caused an escalation in players salaries.

This created a 21 team league. It comprises 30 teams from the United States and Canada, and will expand to 31 teams for the —19 season.

The American Collegiate Hockey Association is composed of college teams at the club level. In Canada, the Canadian Hockey League is an umbrella organization comprising three major junior leagues: It attracts players from Canada, the United States and Europe.

Players in this league are strictly amateur, so that they may play college hockey if they wish. The league is the direct successor to the Russian Super League , which in turn was the successor to the Soviet League , the history of which dates back to the Soviet adoption of ice hockey in the s.

The KHL was launched in with clubs predominantly from Russia, but featuring teams from other post-Soviet states. The league expanded beyond the former Soviet countries beginning in the —12 season , with clubs in Croatia and Slovakia.

The number of teams has since increased to 28 from eight different countries. This league features 24 teams from Russia and 2 from Kazakhstan.

The third division is the Russian Hockey League , which features only teams from Russia. It features 32 teams from post-Soviet states, predominantly Russia.

Several countries in Europe have their own top professional senior leagues. Beginning in the —15 season, the Champions Hockey League was launched, a league consisting of first-tier teams from several European countries, running parallel to the teams' domestic leagues.

The competition is meant to serve as a Europe-wide ice hockey club championship. The competition is a direct successor to the European Trophy and is related to the —09 tournament of the same name.

There are also several annual tournaments for clubs, held outside of league play. One of the oldest international ice hockey competition for clubs is the Spengler Cup , held every year in Davos , Switzerland, between Christmas and New Year's Day.

The Memorial Cup , a competition for junior-level age 20 and under clubs is held annually from a pool of junior championship teams in Canada and the United States.

The World Junior Club Cup is an annual tournament of junior ice hockey clubs representing each of the top junior leagues.

Ice hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics since and was played at the summer games in Hockey is Canada's national winter sport, and Canadians are extremely passionate about the game.

The nation has traditionally done very well at the Olympic games, winning 6 of the first 7 gold medals. However, by its amateur club teams and national teams could not compete with the teams of government-supported players from the Soviet Union.

The USSR won all but two gold medals from to The United States won their first gold medal in On the way to winning the gold medal at the Lake Placid Olympics amateur US college players defeated the heavily favoured Soviet squad—an event known as the " Miracle on Ice " in the United States.

Restrictions on professional players were fully dropped at the games in Calgary. NHL agreed to participate ten years later. Teams are selected from the available players by the individual federations, without restriction on amateur or professional status.

Since it is held in the spring, the tournament coincides with the annual NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and many of the top players are hence not available to participate in the tournament.

Many of the NHL players who do play in the IIHF tournament come from teams eliminated before the playoffs or in the first round, and federations often hold open spots until the tournament to allow for players to join the tournament after their club team is eliminated.

For many years, the tournament was an amateur-only tournament, but this restriction was removed, beginning in In the spirit of best-versus-best without restrictions on amateur or professional status, the series were followed by five Canada Cup tournaments, played in North America.

The United States won in and Canada won in and Since the initial women's world championships in , there have been fifteen tournaments.

The annual Euro Hockey Tour , an unofficial European championship between the national men's teams of the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and Sweden have been played since — As of , the two top teams of the previous season from each league compete in the Trans-Tasman Champions League.

Ice hockey in Africa is a small but growing sport; while no African ice hockey playing nation has a domestic league, there are several regional leagues in South Africa.

Pond hockey is a form of ice hockey played generally as pick-up hockey on lakes, ponds and artificial outdoor rinks during the winter.

Pond hockey is commonly referred to in hockey circles as shinny. Its rules differ from traditional hockey because there is no hitting and very little shooting, placing a greater emphasis on skating, puckhandling and passing abilities.

Ice hockey is the official winter sport of Canada. Ice hockey, partially because of its popularity as a major professional sport, has been a source of inspiration for numerous films, television episodes and songs in North American popular culture.

A record was set on December 11, , when the University of Michigan 's men's ice hockey team faced cross-state rival Michigan State in an event billed as " The Big Chill at the Big House ".

The game was played at Michigan's American football venue, Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor , with a capacity of , as of the football season.

When UM stopped sales to the public on May 6, , with plans to reserve remaining tickets for students, over , tickets had been sold for the event.

Guinness World Records , using a count of ticketed fans who actually entered the stadium instead of UM's figure of tickets sold, announced a final figure of , The record was approached but not broken at the NHL Winter Classic , which also held at Michigan Stadium, with the Detroit Red Wings as the home team and the Toronto Maple Leafs as the opposing team with an announced crowd of , Number of registered hockey players, including male, female and junior, provided by the respective countries' federations.

Note that this list only includes the 42 of 76 IIHF member countries with more than 1, registered players as of October From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Redirected from Ice Hockey. For other uses, see Ice hockey disambiguation. This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

Fighting in ice hockey. Canadian women's ice hockey history and History of women's ice hockey in the United States. List of ice hockey leagues.

Ice hockey in popular culture. List of ice hockey games with highest attendance. Each goal tender will have the same but on a much denser scale due to them being in the firing line of the puck much more often.

Each team can have a maximum of 20 players. Of these 20 players only six may be on the ice at any one time. The rest will be used as substitutes but can come and go from the game as often as required.

The six starters include a goal tender and 5 outfield players. Whilst each player will be given a position, the players are free to move around the ice as they choose.

This does exclude the goal tender of which must remain within their half and not pass the center red line.

The puck is heavy object made from dense rubber and weighs roughly 6 ounces. The puck is hit by either a players stick or foot but at no point can the puck be handled by any player other than the goal tender.

Each game lasts for three 20 minute periods. For every stoppage in the game the game clock is stopped and as soon as the time is up in each period then the game will instantly cease.

The incident landed Hanson in the news, and irate Winnipeg fans attempted to assault him on his way out of the arena. This game is commonly referred to as the Good Friday Massacre.

Many teams signed enforcers to protect and fight for smaller offensive stars. The game ended with an NHL record penalty minutes, and an NHL record 20 players were ejected, leaving five players on the team benches.

The officials took 90 minutes to sort out the penalties that each team had received. By —10, the number of fights in the NHL declined to.

A further decrease in the frequency of fighting happened over the next five seasons. The —15 season had 0.

Since the s, three rules have curtailed the number and scope of fights in the NHL. In , the league created the "Third Man In" rule which attempts to eliminate the bench-clearing brawl by providing for the ejection of the first player who joins a fight already in progress, unless a match penalty is being assessed to a player already engaged in that fight.

Rules of the NHL, the North American junior leagues, and other North American professional minor leagues punish fighting with a five-minute major penalty.

The rulebooks of the NHL and other professional leagues contain specific rules for fighting. These rules state that at the initiation of a fight, both players must definitely drop their sticks so as not to use them as a weapon.

Players must also "drop" or shake off their protective gloves to fight bare-knuckled, as the hard leather and plastic of hockey gloves would increase the effect of landed blows.

Players should not remove their own helmet before engaging in a fight due to risk of head injury or else both of the opposing players get an extra two penalty minutes.

Players must also heed a referee warning to end a fight once the opponents have been separated. Failure to adhere to any of these rules results in an immediate game misconduct penalty and the possibility of fines and suspension from future games.

A fined coach's lost pay goes to the NHL Foundation. A player is automatically ejected and suspended if the player tries to leave the bench to join a fight, or for using weapons of any kind such as using a skate to kick an opponent, using a stick to hit an opponent, wrapping tape around one's hands, or spitting , as they can cause serious injury.

A player who receives two instigator penalties or participates in three fights in a single game is also ejected automatically. Furthermore, his coach can be suspended up to ten games for allowing players to leave the bench to join a fight.

A player who commits three major penalties including fighting during a game is automatically ejected, suspended, and fined. A player ejected for three major penalties in a game, or for use of weapons, cannot be replaced for five minutes.

For example, if a player engages in a fight having already received a Game Disqualification earlier in the season, he is ejected from that game and suspended for his team's next two games.

Fighting is strictly prohibited in European professional hockey leagues [47] and in Olympic ice hockey. Despite the bans, there have been fights in European leagues.

In , a game between the Nottingham Panthers and the Sheffield Steelers in the British Superleague saw "some of the worst scenes of violence seen at a British ice hockey rink".

Referee Moray Hanson sent both teams to their locker rooms and delayed the game for 45 minutes while tempers cooled and the officials sorted out the penalties.

Eight players and both coaches were ejected, and a British record total of penalty minutes were incurred during the second period. Officials were forced to abandon the game as there were only four players left.

Thirty-three players and both teams' coaches were ejected, and a world record total of penalty minutes were incurred during the game.

The Punch-up in Piestany was a notable instance of fighting in international play. A World Junior Ice Hockey Championships game between Canada and the Soviet Union was the scene of a bench-clearing brawl that lasted 20 minutes and prompted officials to turn off the arena lights in an attempt to stop it, forcing the IIHF to declare the game null and void.

The fighting was particularly dangerous as fighting was a surprise and a custom unknown to the Soviet players, some of whom escalated the fighting beyond what was considered acceptable in North America.

Both teams were ejected from the tournament, costing Canada an assured medal, and the Soviet team was barred from the end-of-tournament dinner.

The role of "enforcer" on a hockey team is unofficial. Coaches often send enforcers out when opposing enforcers are on the ice or any time when it is necessary to check excessively physical play by the opposing team.

There are many reasons for fights during a hockey game. Some reasons are related to game play, such as retaliation, momentum-building, intimidation, deterrence, attempting to draw "reaction penalties", and protecting star players.

There are also some personal reasons such as retribution for past incidents, bad blood between players, and simple job security for enforcers.

Of the many reasons for fighting, the foremost is retaliation. The fight may be between the assailant and the victim, between the assailant and an enforcer from the victim's team, or between opposing enforcers.

Fights that occur for retaliation purposes can be in immediate response to an on-ice incident, to incidents from earlier in the game, or to actions from past games.

For example, putting the opposing team on a power play due to penalties incurred from fighting is less advisable when the game is close.

Enforcers sometimes start fights to build game momentum and provide a psychological advantage over the opposing team. These fights usually involve two enforcers, but may involve any player who is agitating the opposition.

For that reason, it can also be a gamble to start a fight for momentum; if an enforcer loses the fight, the momentum can swing the wrong way.

Intimidation is an important element of a hockey game [2] and some enforcers start fights just to intimidate opposing players in hopes that they will refrain from agitating skilled players.

Since the penalties for fighting are so severe, the enforcers are less able to intimidate opposing players with fighting and said players take more liberties on the ice.

For teams that face each other frequently, players may fight just to send the message to the opposing players that they will be the target of agitation or aggression in future games.

This practice is also known to be difficult due to the Instigator rule. Another reason is the protection of star players. Fighting within the game can also send a message to players and coaches from other teams that cheap shots, dirty plays, and targeting specific players will not be tolerated and there will be consequences involved.

Fighting can provide retribution for a team's player getting targeted or injured. Overall, fighting is sometimes seen as a beneficial policing that the game needs to keep players in line.

Over the history of hockey, many enforcers have been signed simply to protect players like Gretzky, who was protected by Dave Semenko , Marty McSorley , and others, and Brett Hull , who was protected by Kelly Chase and others.

Many young enforcers need to establish their role early in their career to avoid losing their jobs. There are also times when players and even entire teams carry on personal rivalries that have little to do with individual games; fights frequently occur for no other reason.

Statistics indicate that fights are detrimental to teams' play, or have inconsequential benefits. Since the —80 season, teams in the bottom three of fighting-related major penalties have finished at the top of the regular-season standings 10 times and have won the Stanley Cup 11 times, while teams in the top three have won the regular season and Stanley Cup only twice each.

Two others showed that fights increase scoring, but do so evenly for both teams so do not significantly affect wins.

The Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine announced in Position Statement in that "Fighting does cause injuries, which range from fractures of the hands and face to lacerations and eye injuries.

At present, it is an endemic and ritualized blot on the reputation of the North American game. Criticism often arises after single acts of violence committed during fights.

Fedoruk already had titanium plates in his face from a fight earlier in the season with Derek Boogaard. The resulting media coverage of the incident renewed calls for a fighting ban.

Sports journalists have articulated the idea with increasing frequency that fighting adds nothing to the sport and should be banned.